


The Trials We Face

by BurrSquee, Tikor



Series: Castebook: Changing Moon [3]
Category: Exalted
Genre: Domestic Violence, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Forced Pregnancy, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Lunars, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Mind Control, Miscarriage, POV First Person, Physical Abuse, Pregnancy, Roleplaying Character, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-01-26 10:45:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12555716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurrSquee/pseuds/BurrSquee, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tikor/pseuds/Tikor
Summary: Herein are the trials of six Changing Moons as they find their footing in their Caste.





	1. The Trials We Face: Changing Moon

The trials of the Changing Moon are the interpretations of a glance. They are the likelihood of action. They are in the wondering - is the ruse up? Unlike their warrior brethren, so often challenged by strength of arms and unlike their scholarly sisters dabbling in the arcane, the Changing Moons flow through mortal society, leaving a wake of disturbance but, by the true masters, no discernible source. They are the calm eyes of the storm, they are the unseen hand which moves a kingdom, they are the rumor which brings about the fall of the powerful woman with a crime in her past she thought would never be unearthed. 

Elders looking for Changing Moon tendencies in their unblooded pups have much to find. Where once three Castes held sway, one now holds all their numbers, making Changing Moons the unrivaled Caste by sheer population. A priestly manner with the flocks of men can remind the elders of the Waxing Moons, an instinctual retreat from notice flags the Waning, and the indifference to identities no longer useful, dropped with little remorse or any consideration to internal consistency marks the Half-Moons, all of which are tattooed as Changing Moons today. Many Changing Moons are marked, but in the following years fewer so marked make it to old age. The Dragon-Blooded control the worlds of men, mostly. To mingle with them is to invite disaster.


	2. Ten Stripes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ten Stripes, a siaka new to the school, tests her mettle before her elders.

**Luthe**  
Swims in Shadows turned out to be a real pal. He taught me all about Essence, all about Luna, and all about this Silver Pact he said I would be a part of just as soon as I went through an initiation. He made me feel less alone, like I was a part of something. 

I was a bit nervous, a bit curious about this initiation he mentioned, though. He wouldn’t tell me exactly what it was, what I’d be doing. He said he only got to set one trial, that the others would set the rest. Others of the Silver Pact. And he said that they’d be waiting for us at Luthe, which was this city under the sea.

Now, every Westerner has heard stories about people living under the sea, and how sometimes they come up from way down there and cause trouble, but most don’t believe those stories. Most folks with their heads right think that either a Fair Folk started those stories, or that the Fair Folk just changed themselves as they were swimming to make other people tell those stories, or maybe both. But Swims in Shadows assured me that there were real, air-breathing people who were certainly not Fair Folk who lived in a city at the bottom of the sea. He said he’d been there many times, and that his children were part of their culture. I still had a hard time believing him. Till we swam there, anyway.

Most a’ the journey we swam near the surface. When we approached Luthe we were just swimming out in the open ocean, I still couldn’t really tell one part of it from the other at that point, when out of the black below us these white circles faded into view. Swims in Shadow told me to stay calm, and I didn’t know what he was talking about. Probably just some light rocks or something, right? Then the white circles got bigger, I saw some white swirly bits, and then they all got clear enough to see that they were part of the biggest whale I'd ever seen then or since. 

It was bigger than Swims in Shadow’s school, him, and me, and all the water between us thrown in for good measure. And were weren’t swimming that close! It swam by us and blew air out at the water’s edge, took in a deep breath, and swam back down to us. It looked at Swims in Shadows, and the No Moon wiggled his fins like he did with me, but this time I didn’t understand any of it. The whale just stared at us a moment, then dove back into the deeps. We all swam after him, down so deep barely any light made it down with us.

Just when I thought it was going to go completely dark, lights started shining up to us. This big dome with lights inside and outside of it was sitting there on the bottom of the ocean, like Swims in Shadows said it would. And there were these sharks with arms and legs instead of proper fins patrolling about! It was confusing, and no little frightening, but I’d come this far, so I kept following Swims in Shadows. He led me to an entrance that was filled with water, and we swam in. Then the door closed behind us. When the water drained out, I changed back into my human self for the first time in weeks. That’s when I saw the stripes in my hair, in the reflection of the glass that kept the air in. Swims in Shadow had been nudging me to accept a moon-name, to help me separate my Exalted life from who I was before I took the second breath. So I took the name Ten Stripes, right then and there.

**Trials**  
Swims in Shadows was pretty pleased with me for setting my moon-name even before my trials. He introduced me to another one he called a ‘Chosen of Luna’, Song Sparrow. He said she’d be sitting for my trials, but he told me not to worry, that the judgement was only for my benefit. Well, I got all nervous again anyway. And the trials were only part of it. Song Sparrow was just the prettiest petite little creature I’d ever seen, and I was about that age where you start really seeing the sex you’ll be chasing the rest of your life. Swims in Shadows saw me looking at Song Sparrow and felt the need to whisper to me, “She’s killed an entire court of Fair Folk by herself, so treat her with respect.”

I was happy to have any sort of clue, so Song Sparrow got all the respect I could muster. The Luthans, as they called themselves, were right confused by that. They kept talking about their great whale god, especially the ones with tentacles on their faces, and how great an honor it would be for him to oversee my trials. I barely listened. All my attention was for Song Sparrow. 

She was sweet about it, but I learned some time later that she just doesn’t have the same itch that I do about women-folk. Or any-folk, really. Something about being chosen too soon. I didn’t learn that soon enough to avoid making a fool outta myself, but that’s another story. Since we were in Leviathan’s territory, he got to set the first test and since we don’t got all day, I’ll leave the other two to your imagination. The test was to fight one of his shark-men, and I got to pick if it would be on land or in the water, plus any weapon I’d like to have.

Well, looking at the champion I was to fight, he looked like he weighed about 500 pounds, and I hadn’t really filled in yet on my human form, so I picked water and didn’t ask for any weapon. He swam out with his spear, and I swam out as a siaka. When Swims in Shadows waggled at us both to fight, I swam off behind some coral and had him chase me. I switched back to my human form to go through a hole too big for the muscled shark-man or my siaka form. After he swam by, I swam out behind him, changed back, and bit his feet off. Feet ain’t got no place on a shark, anyway.

**Gathering**  
I got my tattoos sorted quick after that - Swims in Shadow marked me as a Changing Moon. Then the three of us swam off North, Leviathan decided to stay home, headed to a Gathering they’d arranged in my honor they said. I didn’t know how to respond to that, nobody much felt like honoring me when I was a poor fatherless girl on Landfall island. Swims in Shadows, though, that guy could read me like a book. He saw how confused I was, and made sure to tell me some stories during the swim to help me out. He told me stories about god-kings and the golden women, how they became encircled by those who only gave them praise, how it made them look at the world all funny - not how it really was, but how their sycophants told them it was. The lessons were pretty clear the way Swims in Shadows told it, that it was alright to feel good being praised, and it was alright to feel bad being criticized, but nobody should be trusted more than your own eyes, ears, and nose. ‘Epistemological priority’ he called it.

Once we were at the Gathering, on this island that didn’t seem to have anybody living on it, we had a grand old time. I got to sit by the beach by the fire with a belly-full of fish and listen to stories like I never got to as a kid. Only, instead of the volcano priestesses, they were the wild stories of the Lunar tribe. One in particular took my fancy; the Thousand Streams River. The storyteller told an extended analogy of different human societies all coming from the same fountainhead, diverging through time, sometimes merging, sometimes ending, but always changing and flowing. That, by now, humanity was a large river delta where many different ways of living were being followed all across Creation. The storyteller, So-Lu-Si, said that it was our responsibility to keep the river spread out so that if any one stream were to dry up, the others would continue to flow. Then she started telling other stories about all the places she’d been and all the cultures she’d seen. 

I sat and thought about that story. About how unhappy I was growing up, about how poor me and my mamma were. That, maybe, if things had been different on our island, we could have found a way to thrive. But, being the guest of honor, I weren’t allowed enough solitude to really come up with anything better. I was approached by So-Lu-Si at the end of her last story, and she led me around introducing me to everybody. 

I also learned a few tricks from the other Lunars there. Ka-Koshu had swam up from the south and told a story about the Fair Folk he fought there. I asked him a bunch of questions after, and he explained all about how they is just stories that dreamed themselves real, and that a clever Lunar can use their own story against them. This quiet-like Lunar, the Silver Shadow, told a story about keeping some spirits in line up north, some snow-gods who let their elementals run free and let ‘em snow over a whole town. I asked her how she battled spirits, and she taught me the trick of striking things that ain’t got no bodies. A Lunar with cat’s eyes and dark skin, Magnificent Jaguar, told me about the Tya, women who sailed the West by forsaking their womanhood in a deal they made with the Storm Mothers. I’d have listened to all the stories every one of them had, but eventually the sun came back to the sky for the third time, and we all swam off back to where we was from. ‘Cept me, who needed to figure that part out. 

I make it to every Gathering I can. They’re a fun place to just be yourself, hear some good stories, and learn things that are darn useful, too.


	3. Seven Devils Clever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seven Devils Clever, the sinful entertainer down the street, relives the troubles of her station.

**Money**  
In Nexus, the trial is money. It’s always money. And someone always has more of it than _you_. Luckily, we have the laws of liturgy as decreed by the council. But let me start from the beginning.

The Three Chests has a indoor sewer system connected to the city main, as every respectable bordello should. Forcing clients to make their water outside in the street is not only miserable in most weather, but a blow to the discretion this business often provides for their customers. We pay our dues to the plumbers’ guild on time, and for my entire tenure there we did not have a problem... until we did.

The smell was awful, our strongest perfumes could not cut it. Business slowed, as was to be expected. As the owner, I was spared shoveling muck, but it was my responsibility to bring the sewer back online, a task I had no expertise in. So I went to the Council of Entities' palace of governance.

Once there I reported my issue to the imposing-looking bureaucrat manning the main desk in his trim robes and expensive hat. He interrupted me a few words in, told me to go down a hallway he pointed at behind him, and called in the next person in line. So I walked, and I found a similar desk, less grand in nature. I explained to the bureaucrat there, less pompously dressed, but still in what the street folk would call finery, my woes. He listened to my whole problem, for he was less busy, and at the end he told me a door to enter, the fourth behind him. Finally for a third time I explained the situation in a tiny office to a squirrelly scribe with unkept hair and the smell of sewage about him. He dutifully wrote my complaint in his ledger, then surprised me with how it was to be resolved. He said that as the owner, I would need to pay to have the sewer repaired. At my predictable shock he consoled me that this act of liturgy would exempt me from property taxes for the rest of the year. He even told me where a good Guildsman with the right skills would be found, and that he had a meeting with him this afternoon if I’d like to be escorted. He smiled warmly at me, with exactly the kind of desire that I’d usually find profitable. But in this moment, after that news, I was in no mood to entertain. I spurned him. I turned and left the office without another word.

Back at the Three Chests I consulted with Masalle on how much we could pay. He gave me a number, and I hoped it would be enough. I was ready to go haggle with the Guildsman, and take a heavy loss to save my business. But then, bless him, Masalle had an idea.

He told me that liturgy was not one law, but several. That, outside of a few loopholes, the most wealthy affected citizen was responsible for the public service. The scribe probably assumed it was myself, but the entire street was having similar woes. Masalle mentioned a regular customer who always paid for the most expensive girls who lived on our street, Xefere. He said that if he could pay the liturgy, it might solve our problem without any expense. I was overjoyed. And in Nexus, that means you ask what the catch is. Masalle filled me in.

The liturgy laws state that a liturgist could argue that another citizen was in fact wealthier and therefore more able to bear the financial burden of the liturgy. Assuming they had not shouldered the public burden of liturgy recently, that other citizen then had three choices. The first was simply to accept the liturgy and pay for the requisite work. The second was to submit to a trial in which a jury determined who was the wealthier, which would ruin me if it dragged on. The last was to swap assets, and the original liturgist, me, would pay using their new fortune. Now, I had no intention of losing the Three Chests. It was the only business I knew, and I was damn good at it. If I were in charge of some yeddim-drawn caravan, I’d be miserable. But, I could gamble that this client, Xefere, felt the same about whatever he owned. 

The smart play in normal circumstances would be to spy on Xefere’s wealth to see if he was truly a rich man or simply one who spent heavily with nothing saved back. But it was already afternoon, and I’d lose more customers each night I waited. Or worse, the girls and boys who worked there. Normally going back on a verbal contract by abandoning the employer who paid you a signing bonus would earn you a black mark in Nexus, but if the working conditions were intolerable, which they certainly were, that could be explained away. So I gathered my courage, and walked the few doors down to Xefere’s manor, and knocked.

A servant answered. I demanded to see master Xefere. The servant responded that the master was away on business, that he would be back days later. The folk of the street, out in the fresh air to avoid the stench, watched on. So I decided to test the truth of the servant’s statement. I shouted for all to hear, “Xefere, I call on you to serve the liturgy of sewer repair for this street! Come out with your response!”

A weak cheer rose from some of the onlookers, and a few murmurs. The servant apologized obsequiously, then closed the door. I stood by to wait. This was my best angle, and I wasn’t about to be put off by a servant. I was a sight in my colorful silks, handkerchief covering my nose, waiting outside a Guildsman’s manor, obviously demanding an audience. 

Eventually the middle-aged man came out and asked me to repeat myself, which I did. Then he cited his liturgy about the street pavement. Noting the age of the cobblestone at my feet, I asked him how long ago that was. He replied that it didn’t matter. I replied that it did, and that I’d be happy to discuss with the Council’s agent just what the statute of limitations are for liturgies of the type he last paid. That offer twisted his mouth, and shut him up. 

That’s when the crowd started joining in, shouting for him to pay so that we could all get on with our lives. I echoed the best that I heard, and soon we were chanting at the Guildsman, whose plight I was inwardly sorry for. I had, myself, cringed at the task I was foisting onto him. Yet my empathy had a limit. His fortunes must have been great, for not once did he ask me anything about my own possessions, likely taking me for the whore whose image I dressed in. Such a profession rarely earns in a lifetime what a profitable caravan master earns in a year. In the end he relented and agreed to pay, and I, graciously, agreed to bring a proper laborer to discuss pricing within the hour. The unkept scribe was right where I left him - I kissed him and mussed his foul-smelling hair, then had him lead me to his contact.

I lost a rich customer, and I gained one of middle income. But more important than that I regained my business. And that is the lesson in Nexus: commerce must flow. 

**Labor**  
Why would I spend a dinar on some finery, when I could spend it hiring a new girl who would earn me two in a month with another 14 months on her contract, each likely to bring another pair of dinars for my coffers? I know how to make a dinar multiply, and it certainly isn't burying it in the ground. The trick is, you have to find the right kind of fetching fellow or curvaceous woman. It's a constant task; most don't stick around.

It takes a special kind of girl to sign on twice or more. Most become haunted by the work, displease a customer, or worse, displease me. The beautiful ones I keep, at least I keep their hearts and shapes. Some have their beauty fade, their youth leave them, I toss back out into the streets. So, I always need new stock. My supply is never as high as the demand even at excellent prices. We simply offer a luxury good that can command its price. Ever since I helped our reputation along, that is. 

You see, when the Silver Pact came for me they taught me more than our history, more than the meaning of the tattoos they marked on my person for my own protection. They taught me how to command my own Essence. And Silver Python gave me a welcoming gift: a small supply of moonsilver to experiment with. 

After I was taught to control my new-found power, I spent months re-learning and mastering tasks I thought I was once competent at, but now knew my mortal skill was like a child playing at a profession compared to my new heights. I painted even my most comely girls and boys into invitations of luscious sin. I crafted their clothing to fit in the most alluring way possible, my needle dancing across silk, cotton, and leather. I talked pious men walking past our pleasure house away of their stable homes and loving wives into nights of passion and debauchery. I even sparred with our security, coming up the victor over the strapping, strong, and fierce blades we give free passes to in exchange for their service. 

And after all that work, I felt the moonsilver calling to me. I swear it would glow in the moonlight when I imagined what I could make it into. So I set to work on it, to make something for myself. It took a just shy of half a year even with hours of labor a day. As much time as I could spare from my responsibilities I devoted to shaping its glowing strings into an Essence of its own.

The result was the Silver Light Cross.

I hardly go anywhere without it these days. It is my calling-card, my constant accessory, and at times, especially dancing in the Three Chests, the only remaining check on my vastly compromised modesty. Its powers for distraction, each shiny string drawing the eye, have helped me see into my client’s deepest desires… all the better to sate them.

Please a man like that, in a way he didn’t even know he needed, and he’ll tell all his friends. The same goes for the women, though more discretely. We’ve been awash in customers, and the muscle have earned their freebees when they turn desperate would-be patrons away from our full house. 

Yes, if things continue like this, the Three Chests will be just the beginning of my mark on Nexus.


	4. Red Jaws

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Red Jaws, a lone wild wolf, gains his pack.

**Retrieval**  
They found me as a fat and happy wolf fresh from a kill, blood all over my face. I had grown used to being treated as an animal in that form, and I was surprised when a human spoke to me. There were three of them, in strange silver tattoos. The leader said, “I am Gerd, Marrow Eater, and we are here to retrieve you, Unblooded.” It didn’t make any sense to me. Covered in blood as I was, I just assumed they were talking to something else I couldn’t see. I pretended I didn’t understand, like any wild wolf would when hearing man words, and loped away.

I didn’t make it far. One of the others, a well muscled woman with a blood-red forelock standing starkly in front of her blonde hair, chased me down on foot. My lupine form should have easily outpaced her human one, but she caught me all the same. After closing the distance she bound me in a crushing grip, closing my jaw with one hand and pinning my claws below me with her body. She kept saying, “Shh. Shh, Red Jaws, Shh,” as I struggled.

The leader and the other one dropped from the sky, changing from birds back to men before my eyes. That didn’t calm me down any. Gerd gave a small nod to his fellow, an Easterner by the look of her, with a full moon on her forehead tattoos. She rubbed something pungent on my wolf’s nose, and moments later I didn’t have the strength to struggle anymore, despite being perfectly conscious. 

Gerd spoke again, “It is reasonable to be disturbed. We’ve entered your territory and are unknown to you. We are Lunars like yourself, graced by Luna’s touch, but we have brought some of her fickle nature under control by the Moonsilver Tattoos. We are part of a society of Lunars known as the Silver Pact…”

I zoned out about then. I had a waking dream, but I don’t think it had to do with the paste on my nose. I saw myself in a building as large as a mountain, looking out over a city bigger than a plain, filled with people. Somehow I was in a younger body that didn’t look like me. I jumped down from that great height, feeling only exhilaration instead of fear. Like the rush of the hunt. When I landed in the crowd, they all turned and clapped. I looked back to the platform I had left, and there was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, golden as the sun, smiling down on me. I would have done anything for that smile. Then I looked to other balconies where those like me, of the Silver Pact I was somehow sure, made the same leap to stand by my side.

“...after the trials, we will mark you as well with a Caste that suits your natural inclinations. Now that I’ve explained all of that, will you come with us willingly?”

Not seeing much use in provoking them, I nodded as best I could with my jaws held firm.

**Trials**  
Gerd and I, we understand each other. I get the feeling that when you look into someone’s soul to see what their Caste should be, understanding follows. But my understanding of Gerd came from his patient explanations to my skittish pup self.

And skittish I was. I’d lived a full mortal life where gods were something you prayed to and hoped you never met, and I never did. When three swooped down into my life, I didn’t know what to think. When they asked me my name, I told them “Red Jaws” so that they couldn’t find my son and daughters if I made them angry. They seemed to know that I had another name, but took what they called my ‘moon-name’ in stride. That set the tone for my reputation among the Silver Pact for being a little too close to the animals in the wilds, a little too red of tooth and claw of the even for them. The other two left as soon as Gerd was certain I’d travel with him.

On the trip from my ranging lands across the White Sea to Haslanti, Gerd told me stories from the Oral History. For weeks of travel, by foot and by boat, he’d wake me up, ask after my condition, share breakfast with me, then launch into a tale. The same after lunch, and after dinner. Always explaining, never asking anything from me but to listen. 

I heard the story of the star and the wolf and how the wolf who ranged the edge of the world got her markings. I heard of the true wolf and the reformation of the Silver Pact after the fire took over Creation. I learned of gods I didn’t know existed, and about the wonders and dangers of the Wyld. Gerd explained the nature of Luna’s grace through the story of the second soul, and the past lives it brings into the present. When I told him of my dreams and waking visions where I was myself but not me, he said that was completely normal, though they would come less frequently with time. He said they were memories of my ‘previous incarnation’.

When we arrived in Haslanti, many of my dreams were starting to make more sense. They matched up with the older stories in the Oral History. Dragon-Blooded acting like soldiers instead of princes. Who that other me was, and how he could do the things that he did. And why that golden woman kept appearing. It made me feel like the present was out of step, that the past these visions portrayed was the true, right way of Creation. At least until I shook my head a little, and everything righted itself, and the life and world I’d always known felt familiar again.

Haslanti was like one big trading post. Lots of people coming and going. Gerd didn’t want to spend much time there, though, and tried not to be seen. He hired an air boat for the both of us, and we were at his Manse in an afternoon. There Uka the Boar and the Silver Shadow waited at Gerd’s request.

The trials themselves were quick. I tracked and speared a horned snow hunter, I retold some of the stories that Gerd had told me, and I was sent to town to find a guide to Wavecrest, wherever that was. I admit I stumbled on some of the details of the stories, so I made up some parts, but the other two went pretty well. After that I waited a week or so, then they put on this fancy ritual and gave my body silver markings like theirs. Well, more like Gerd’s than the other two. Then, I was set free. I made my way back to my old ranging grounds by foot and paw. 

**Romantic Life**  
I haven’t taken a mate since my second breath. I haven’t been hawking any wares or talking to any young traders. They’d probably not talk back to the wrinkled, coarse man that I am, anyway. I haven't got the trick of taking human shapes like Gerd has. All the other Lunars I’ve met have been on their own path, not someone looking to share a life. Gerd told me that in time other Lunars will be the only ones that can truly be a partner in life. To me, they all seem so strange. I hope he’s wrong.

**Lunar God-Blooded**  
Gerd explained in the story of the gray pup that the children we have get a small measure of Luna’s grace, and that they can be both a help and burden, but never like us, nor never truly mortal. I’m not sure I’m ready for that kind of problem. Mortal children were trouble enough. I’ve seen what a mess a little touch of the otherworldly can make of someone’s life when they aren’t ready for it, and children aren’t ready for anything. They must be made ready. 

I’m not sure I’ve even got my head around everything being a Lunar really means for myself, yet. Gerd thinks I’m soft on the mortals. I feel even though I can wrestle a mammoth to the ground these days I’d be even softer on a child I could see Luna in. 

**Religious Life**  
Luna is my goddess now. I used to pray to whatever god the priest said ruled over my and their little corner of Creation. Now I can see Luna’s touch in things, both large and small. The oddities that don’t go to plan, the chances that beat the odds. Seems like most gods are going to do what they’re made to do, whether we pray to them or not. Luna, having already saved my life once, I think is a little more likely to listen to what I have to say and make a change for me. She likes change already, my prayers just offer her ideas. Not that I ask much. I let her know my reverence daily, and every once in awhile mention how I think a thing should turn out. 

Though, talking around the Gatherings, I haven’t noticed a particularly wrong way to worship Luna. Of all the forms she takes that Gerd taught me, unless I’d heard the explanation in the story of the moon goddess, I’d have thought they were different gods entirely. Seems like she has a face for every occasion. I hope to one day be able to say the same.


	5. Song Sparrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Song Sparrow, an ignorant Lunar, fulfills her promise and learns new tricks.

**Journey**  
Mersach was as good as his word. The next day I was on an ancient ship headed West, the Antibellum. I’d never been on the ocean before. The whole world rocked, and it took some getting used to. But by the second day I’d found my sea legs and began to enjoy the experience. I spoke with the sailors who would talk back to me - some of them said prayers to the Dragons anytime I came close, but others were happy to break the monotony of tying ropes and watching the waves with conversation.

I learned from them that we were sailing to a place called the Neck, and that we’d be stopping for provisions and water in Wu Jian. They told me the names of the birds and the fish we saw that were strange to me. They told me how to pray to the Ocean Father and the Storm Mothers. The captain was not friendly with me. When I spoke with the captain, Eastern Spray, he was curt, saying as little as he could to me, though he did not visibly ignore me and pray like the others whose fear I could smell. He told me to stay out of the other sailors’ way.

That continued for some days, until we saw some land in the distance. The captain shouted a lot of orders, and he even had one for me. He told me that I wasn’t allowed to leave the boat while we were at port in Wu Jian, but even though his voice was even, I could smell him sweating when he said it. I stayed in my little cabin and didn’t cause any trouble at port, content to sleep most of the journey away. 

I had many odd dreams on that ship. Dreams that will make sense to you, fellow chosen, but to my younger self they were as odd as stories of the Fae. I dreamt I could change into a sparrow, that I could steal the forms of animals and even people by ripping their hearts from thier chests and drinking their blood, and that I could surpass all human ability by tapping into a an invisible force that permeated the world. On that boat, that’s all they were, just dreams, but they’d soon be real.

We sighted land again weeks later at a tiny island of the Neck, Suadela. I could see both sides of it from the sea, and my only comparison was the giant spires of Wu Jian and the Emerald Isle off the Blessed Isle whose two ends I never saw at the same time. The sails were loosened to flap against the wind at the captain’s order, and we lost our wind-borne momentum. The captain looked like he was about to say something else, but then his first mate, who I’d spoken to frequently, started to whisper to him.

The captain whispered back, and it looked like they began to have an argument. From the parts that jumped above a whisper I heard, “No telling if she’ll hold it against us,” and, “I have my orders, do you want Peleps Arimida to keel-haul the lot of us?” After a few more exchanges, the first mate backed down, and the captain ordered the gangplank brought out.

I watched this all with the innocent curiosity of youth. The sailors gave me stolen looks, but I didn’t know what about until the captain ordered me seized. The proreus had his man do it for him, he was one of the ones who’d shy away and pray anytime I came near. I was hauled to the side of the ship with the gangplank and set atop it by the proreus’ man who lifted me like I was nothing at all, though I noticed he was gentler than he could have been.

Then the captain spoke to me, “Lass, you see that island yonder? This is as far as we take you. You’ll have to swim the rest.” When I just looked at him, he added while pointing, “Walk yer’self off now, lass.”

I looked over my shoulder at the water, then back at the captain and crew, who were all staring at me now. Somewhat dumbly, I said, “But, I don’t know how to swim.”

The captain sighed, and hesitated a bit. The first mate looked at the captain like he wanted to say something, but held himself back now that the order had been given. Then the captain’s face set to resolve, and he drew his saber and pointed it at me. “Lass, the current will draw you near the island. Just stay afloat till your feet hit the sand.”

“My name is Song Sparrow!” I said, taking the moon name of my dreams for the first time, flaring my tail. “And I don’t want to jump!” 

The captain edged closer to me, side-face, in a fighter’s stance. “That’s too bad what you want, Anathema. You’re going to jump off this ship.” With those words, the rest of the crew readied their weapons, simple slings and daggers meant for cleaning fish. Some were hesitant, but most were determined to follow their captain.

It seems silly now, but I really was afraid of them, even with Luna’s power swelling within me. When they took a step closer to me, I took a step back from them out on the gangplank. That continued until I didn’t have any steps left, my foot slipped, and I fell.

But the sailors heard no splash from my fall. On the way down I lost my arms, grew wings, and flew my way to Suadela. 

**Initiation**  
Suadela was another world from the one I’d known, but far from the last new world Luna's touch would introduce me to. She is the watcher of borders between Creation and the other worlds it touches - and it shows. The Fickle Lady does take pleasure at throwing me through as many as she can.

As if by Fate, that very day I stumbled into another of Luna’s tribe as soon as I changed back, setting my human feet in the city. I knew him by the marks on his skin, though I had never seen them before. A vision took my senses to another place where around a campfire a half-dozen half-humans shared stories with light dancing off of their curious, flowing, silver markings. I recognized their faces and stories, though no thought of them had ever crossed my mind before. He looked directly at my dream-self with eyes that bore no white as if he could see me spying on them, his muscled chest open, his dark skin caressed by the firelight. Snapping back from the vision, but still in the grips of strangeness, I called out to him, “The Walker at the Crossroads’ favor upon you.” He turned and spotted me immediately, staring with his intent black eyes just like in my vision. He responded, “The White Navigator shall see us both through.”

With a few more words exchanged only slightly less cryptically, he led me to a camp he had made in the jungle outside the city. Omens of the Eagle and Fish prophecies had led him there from his journeys in the Wyld, he told me. He introduced himself as a Lunar of middling rank in the Swords of Luna, Him What Waits. I was overjoyed to hear this, saying I was looking to join their number. I didn’t mention who put me up to this task, and he did not ask, seeming to accept me without any vouching other than my own. He said he would be glad to take me into the Swords when I expressed interest to him, provided I passed initiation. He invited me to his boat on the Western shore a day’s hike away where together we could sail to my testing grounds. I accepted.

Once there, we boarded his wooden skiff, for it was a truly tiny thing, hardly looking seaworthy, and sailed switchback into the teeth of the Western wind. We had no supplies, no water, not even anything to cover us from the sun, yet my captain seemed unworried, so I settled down to wait out the journey. 

About midday, he bid me to hold the tiller, that he would be back shortly. I did as he asked, then he jumped in the water. Alone on his boat, mine now to steer, I began to pay more attention to the sea than I had as a passenger. This was only my second time out on the ocean, and my first time commanding a vessel, a task for which I am as unsuited today as I was that day. The wind felt louder and started to whistle, though I saw nothing for it to blow past to cause that effect. The slapping of the waves on the skiff’s hull sounded less like benign water and more like hands hitting the wood, looking for purchase to climb aboard. The clouds above moved far too fast, changing from clear sun to complete shade and back again in minutes. I was beginning to truly worry when Him What Waits returned. 

He carried a ridiculously large single-leafed plant, complete with some seafloor its roots had brought up with them. In his mouth was a pail filled with water, and in the net behind him were fish with rainbow scales. He climbed aboard easily, then dropped his haul on the floorboards, except for the plant, which he positioned between us and the sun. He bid me drink from the pail and it tasted sweet and fresh, though how it maintained its freshness against the sea it was hauled through I never figured out. He disentangled from his net two rainbow fish. He bit into his while it was still wriggling, tossing me one and motioning me to do the same. It tasted like a dozen fruits mashed together, unlike fish at all. 

I asked him, “What are these strange fish?” He answered, “They have no name but what the Fae call them, and that changes by the day. I call them lunch.” Unsure whether I would get any clearer an answer if I pressed my guide, I kept my own council and ate to myself.

Over the next few weeks, Him What Waits told me of the Lunar’s sacred hunt. He taught me first how to swim, then to steal the shapes of the animals at sea. We’d spend days underwater, but when we surfaced, his boat was always waiting for us. 

One day when I awoke Him What Waits announced abruptly, “We are here.”

I looked around. Sometime, I couldn’t recall when, we had lost sight of the horizon. Instead of the water curving downwards after a distance, it curved upwards. Water was all I could see; it filled the sky like we were sailing in an air-bubble. I asked, “And where is here?” Him What Waits told me, “Here is the waypoint in our journey that belongs to The Sea Drake Alistair, Scales upon Scales. He is quite territorial, even for a Fae. He will challenge us any minute now. Bring me his Heart’s Grace, and I will accept you as a sister in the Swords of Luna.”

As if reacting to an unseen, dramatic cue, a sea monster burst from the waves and rocked our little skiff. 

I spread my wings and took to the air. The sea-monster dove his head below the waves and his great serpent-body flowed after his snout. I pecked at his scales, then dodged his tail that tried to swat me out of the air. We circled and fought, me changing shapes and he changing the world around us. I became a sawfish when he collapsed the air-bubble on which we sailed into nothing but sea. When I bit into him with my fish’s sideways teeth, he thrashed in pain and raised up the seafloor to slam into my side. When I became the ray and hid in the new sand, he swam over me, and my stinger pierced his hide. My poison worked through his body and paralyzed him. I became the lamprey and stuck to his side, sucking the Heart out of him, feeding on his dying energy. Then I swam up to the surface and climbed into the skiff. Once there before Him What Waits, I gorged forth the Heart of the Fae, spilling it at our feet. Him What Waits nodded sagely at me, tapped his foot on his boat twice, grabbed me and jumped while the boat tuned and splashed itself in the water. We landed on a wet, but clean sailing vessel. Then he said, “Welcome, my sister, to the tribe that guards the very world.”

 **Mentorship**  
Of course, being thrown into the Wyld and asked to kill things unaided was not the way the Swords of Luna conducted all their business. It was just the method by which they decided if you were worth their time. After I returned, Him What Waits sent word to some distant land, and weeks later a wizened woman with wolf’s whiskers introduced herself to me. 

I took to the bow under her watch, but only after I’d failed with wooden swords, wooden darts, and my own fists. Targets I couldn’t hit the outer marks of at twenty paces with a dart I could land a shaft in the inner circle with every arrow in my quiver at forty, and had a fair chance at landing most on the target even one hundred paces distant. I was still humiliated by an old woman throwing me about in the dirt once a week, but I think that’s simply because the Marked Wolf enjoyed it. She tried to pass it off like I might be unarmed one day. If I am, I hope it is against an opponent less gifted than she. 

As to be expected of a No Moon, she told me many stories, and she was practiced in the telling even then. We spoke of the history of the Marked Wolf, she who roamed the edge of the world, she who walked by the golden woman’s side, she who fought the circus, and lived through the rain of fire. I heard of the Moon’s first meeting with the Sun. I heard of the first sorcerer, Bar-Izahd, and his daughter Mishiko. I heard of the golden woman’s marks, and of the Fae’s story-selves. But, being honest with myself, though I listened intently, I could not repeat half of them. I recognize them at the gatherings, enough to request my favorites and enjoy hearing their retelling, but I have no vast stores of memories about their starts and middles and ends like the Marked Wolf has.

There was a game we played where I bested her more than I was bested. It was the game of faces. The Marked would would take one of her shapes, she knew only two: her whiskered human form, and a white-furred northern wolf whose thinness was pitying to look upon. I would find her out each time - in her guise of a wolf not native to the island, or dressed as a man whose skin was too light for Suadela, or a woman whose veil did not do enough to hide her whiskers. I, in turn, would take shapes and make my mentor that same promise. Unlike her, I performed the sacred hunt on creatures of the island, for prior to dwelling there I had hunted no other land forms. They were much easier to blend in, for they belonged here, and my own tell of tail-feathers was easy to disguise among bird shapes. The Marked Wolf would run out of time more often than not, and I strutted with no little pride when she failed to find me.

When I asked her why she did not hunt the animals of the island for their shapes as I did, the Marked Wolf simply smiled at me and said she was working on something more important. That the two shapes she had were good enough for most things, besides tricking sharp-eyed pups. When I asked her what, exactly, was more important, she bid me to come to her workshop. Inside was a mess of black metal, tools of various varieties, and scraps of extremely valuable Jade littering the hut. Most of the contents were a mystery to me, but the Jade caught my eye. I asked her if she was saving to buy something very expensive. She responded that she was making something without price.

A month later, the Marked Wolf presented me with a bow much finer than the yew-wood one I had grown to love. I didn’t think it was real when I first saw it, I had to hit myself to assure my waking mind that I wasn’t dreaming. The bow itself was the black of night, curved like the edge of the moon. The string bearing the ends taught was a bundle of colors, each of the five chords a vibrant hue - black, blue, green, red, and white. The twisted strands of Jade were held in no grooves. Instead, the ends of the strings looked fused to the black metal of the bow, always ready. I received it from her reverently, and tried to pull it immediately, but it refused to bend. The Marked Wolf chuckled at me, saying that she had to get to know me first. She said her name was Everything That Power Permits, and that if I meditated on her beauty, she would yield to me.

I fell to my seat immediately, Soulsteel and Jade bow in my lap, and began to breathe in her aura. By the end of the day, the archery butt was in shreds, and we were inseparable.

The Marked Wolf then sat me for my tattoos, and I became the Changing Moon you see before you now. 

But, the life of a Lunar in the Swords of Luna is not a parade of games, stories, sparring, and fine gifts. It is all in preparation to defend Creation. Our world is that battle, and we claim the edge of Creation as our Territory upon which to wage it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hat tip to Porpentine‘s With Those We Love Alive for the excellent Artifact name.


	6. Lilith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lilith, scrambled under the might of Solar Charms, loses and regains her mind.

**Desus**  
It wasn’t always bad, my life with Desus. There are times I remember somewhat fondly, through the taint of what happened. I started as his pupil. I wasn’t his lover, companion, or even his friend. He made me train every day until I was too tired to stand, and then he trained me some more. Learning combat from him was simple; repetition, repetition, repetition. You did something until you got it right. When you got it wrong, he’d let you know and then you’d do it again. This personal dogma followed him in all aspects of his life.

Before long, but what felt like a lifetime to me, Desus and I became lovers. I’d been enamored with him since the beginning, even with the grueling sessions. It was after one particularly hard session that our knowledge of each other advanced. One minute, I was panting on the grounds outside of Desus’ home, and the next thing I remember is being naked on my bed with him teaching me the arts of the bedroom. How this happened exactly escapes me. Desus was always good with words, even when I hated him. He never touched me that day, he never even removed an article of clothing, yet he continued to instruct me until I was sure combat was easier. Desus left me exhausted on the bed, with nothing but a “You’ll be better next time,” as a goodbye. About a year later, we were married in the manse.

The thing I don’t think I’ve made clear about Desus is this; he was immensely popular and powerful. Desus, and most of his circle, fought in the primordial wars and they fought well. To this day I’m sure there are stories of their conquests. They were honored and celebrated among the other Celestial Exalted. Each had Cults they had to no direct hand in forming, due to their god-like status with the mortals. Any major problem, strife, or complication inside their combined tributaries was dealt with by this circle. And they were all tributaries save the Hierophant’s prefecture - they considered themselves above Deliberative law, and had a mutual understanding regarding defense. Major breakthroughs in Manse technology were owned by his circle, like the floating city of Tzatli, Bright Shattered Ice’s domain, making them all effortlessly and fabulously wealthy. This may be hard for you to understand, you who has never experienced Solar rule, but he and his circlemates were a sight to behold, grander than any Gathering, so resplendent they shone. And I was there amongst them, and felt their effects, basking in their light as one of their trusted mates. Desus was mine. He was someone everyone wanted to be with, talk to, love, and he was mine and I was his. All the Exalted, from Dragon-Blooded and Sidereals and even other Solars, looked up to influential Solars like Desus, unlike now when we live in this Second Age with a fractured and dissonant Exalted Host. You'll never know the all-consuming feeling it is to be the envy of so many powerful Exalts..

Married life changed Desus. Although I was still training with him, I would often train with others to learn techniques or Charms that he couldn’t teach me. Ingosh Silverclaws taught me the finer points of the Deadly Beastman Transformation, and better yet, how to keep it from controlling me. Lunar Hero Style I learned from my sifu, Terrakun, legend of the Vajkaimal islands. Those training sessions he cared far less about. On more than one occasion he stole me from wherever I was training to go on a romantic retreat to Malfeas. No one really cared there, and he was as tender and affectionate as any young lover I’d known. But word still got out, and somehow we were exemplified as the most romantic, most devoted, most in love couple to be seen.

As time continued to move, things subtly changed for the worse, and for a long time I didn’t care. Or perhaps I couldn’t care. Slowly I moved away from people I had known for years. I lost contact with my old reincarnations’ pack, all of whom I’d grown close to in one way or another. I did not pray to Luna for the Silver Chair’s return in the Caul with Terrakun at Calibration. I did not check in with Ingosh for our friendly talks about the beast within. I began to only associate with other Sun King Seneschals, whose cause I championed at Desus’ ‘request’. “These are the only respectful Lunars,” Desus had said. Sometimes I wonder if a chance encounter with Ma-Ha-Suchi was the catalyst for this. But I’m sure it would have happened at some point anyway. Charms were dictated to me instead of suggested. I had never gone against his suggestions, but there wasn’t even the illusion of choice. I didn’t care, for I would do anything for him, for my love of him. 

In the same vein, he began to hurt me. Not just with his words, which he could sharpen to knives with that eloquence of his. Not just with his deeds among the other women he kept. Physically. There was a dark side of him, so far from the light I first saw in him, that became more and more pronounced. First it was small things: rougher times in bed, a caress that was more pain than pleasure, a spar that was far too realistic. These things crept up on me, for love hides many faults. When did I finally notice things had gone too far? Well, I had been left to manage Desus’ eastern holdings while he was off fighting or saving something. He had finally returned and was dealing with some disgruntled neighbor. Somehow it involved other Exalts, but the details escape me. Due to my recent duties I had been briefed more thoroughly on the dynamic situation, and I mistakenly tried to correct him on some matter in public. The next thing I knew, I was on the floor many meters from where I had been standing. “Be mindful of your station, my dear wife” he had said, without even looking up from the documents. But the others had seen, and while some were shocked, no one had moved from their places at that table. No one even moved to help me. The humiliation burned hotter than the strike, with which my training had made me familiar. I could feel the bruise beginning to blossom on my face; the throbbing making me feel like my whole head was a giant drum. I feared his reactions for the rest of the meeting and the remaining day. And yet, that night he had loved me with a tenderness that made me want to weep with confusion.

Sometimes I wonder if I really loved him, or if I loved the idea of him. He was seen as a noble hero and humanitarian, beloved and honored by many. But being so close to him for so long, I saw past the facade. Who he truly was consisted of far darker things. I wondered then who else had seen this side of him. Most any who even remember him are dead now. Yet even after all these years, I hope not many saw his true self. Reflex, I presume. I fear that can’t be true; I fear that many or even most of the Celestial Exalted knew, but did not challenge him. That lack of challenge let his darkness grow unchecked. I was complicit, just like the rest.

The first time he truly hurt me was the first time our wishes didn’t align. I remember vividly to this day - the memory is so burned into my mind. He had asked me to take on Twin-faced Hero. I said that I had no use for it. He responded, "It's use would be to please me." I responded, "No, I have no use of the Charm." He said nothing, but the look on his face shot terror into my heart. I couldn't help but step back, bracing myself for anything. His face was stoic and as beautiful as ever, yet his eyes said nothing but fury. With a quick movement, I was sent sprawling into a wall. I knew my hip had been shattered. I looked to see him staring down at me, his hand still raised. I quietly relented, and he gave me a small smile that changed nothing in his eyes. That same day I mastered the technique, I was used harder than I had ever been before. A Charm had been used to muffle everything. He did nothing physical to lessen the noise for himself. I truly think he enjoyed himself. That was simply the first time I was used like this.

This I remember, and yet there is so much that escapes me. So much of my life while married to Desus is missing from my memory. I had many days, especially when he was away, when I remember chatting or having a meal with someone and then I’m somewhere miles away. All in the space of a blink. There are many things that have been attributed to me: great battles, threats, blackmail, even lovers that I simply have no memory of. And many I know I didn’t even commit! Even now, this topic makes my head buzz. Let’s move on to something I do remember even if it is not a happy memory.

For such a very long time, Desus wanted nothing to do with progeny. I don’t know if this was because he didn’t want my love for him to be divided by children or that any child we had could surpass his power, I don’t know. It was ludicrous to think a Solar god-blooded could be any threat to either of us, but the depths of his paranoia and self-aggrandizement may have convinced him that _his_ child might. Whatever his reasons, children were not part of our relationship the way they were for other mated pairs. Which is why I was so surprised when suddenly, like nearly all the changes to aspects of our life together, he wanted children. And he demanded them.

I was only happy with the first pregnancy. I wasn’t sure why Desus had suddenly wanted children, but there was a part of me that couldn’t be happier with the idea of having part of him inside of me. Everyone knew and everyone congratulated us. It was even published in a few magazines for the masses, if I remember correctly. The most admired couple in Creation was having a child! You can’t imagine the talk. This would be hard nowadays, even if the Celestial Exalted were not hunted and hated. We don’t have the speed of communication that was granted to us by I AM. You could keep a god-blooded pregnancy hidden, where that was not possible back then, even with the pregnancy going so quickly. I wish it would have been, but I digress. I was happy. I distinctly remember being happy.

But this was something different for Desus. I was never far from Desus during the entirety of that first pregnancy. We stayed in our home in Meru, and we did not really leave during those first months. If Desus had to leave, then I left with him. He was determined to have me by his side. And if it was I who needed to leave, he would be near me or send me with one of his Circlemates. Now most would think of this as being overprotective of his offspring and his wife, but they would be wrong. So very wrong. His eyes were always on me, and it didn’t take me long to realize that they were eyes lacking the love and happiness I felt. They were cold and calculating eyes. He was always watching me and thinking. What he was thinking would come about halfway through my pregnancy.

This is the part of the story where I have lost more than I wanted, or maybe not. We had argued? No, that wouldn't be right. I never argued with him. I couldn’t argue with him. He was mad about something that I had done or said to someone else. Or it could have had nothing to do with me, because that didn’t matter much with his moods. But he was in a mood and he was fuming around his training grounds, and I was there watching him at his request. Now, to the inexperienced eye, Desus was not outwardly mad, but this was not true for me. I could see it in the way he moved, in the way he held himself, even in the way he breathed. All were radiating with furious energy that I knew to be a huge warning sign.

HIs eyes landed on me while he was training, and I could see that calculating look come again, cold and fierce as before. And then things changed. He had gone into a form of calmness that took me off guard. Not that this was something I could guard against much. It was a sign that he had made a decision. He asked me to come over to him, which I readily agreed to. I stood before him, looking up at him as he looked at me with the calmest eyes I had seen in a long time. With the gentlest of touches, he stroked my cheek as he seemed to contemplate me. He gave me a small smile, which I couldn’t help but smile back. It was the first time in almost half a year that he had looked at me with anything resembling kindness. And then I felt the flurry of two sharp blows to my stomach. Suffice It to say, I was no longer pregnant.

It took awhile for people to realize that I was no longer pregnant. I remember that I was with Contentious Sword while we were fighting a behemoth that had spawned from the Wyld. We had just defeated it when he commented on my warrior skills during my pregnancy. That someone as pregnant as I was supposed to be would surly be showing some signs of pregnancy, or at least be a little slower, a little more cautious. He meant it as praise, his Dawn sensibilities proud of my martial results, the way I threw myself at the beast, minimizing our accompanying mortals’ casualties. I feel bad that I ended up weeping in front of him. He didn’t know that I was no longer pregnant. Desus had made sure that no one asked me about my pregnancy. Contentious Sword had no idea what to do, and honestly I wasn’t even sure what I would have wanted him to do. Contentious Sword was kinder to me than anyone else during the First Age, each of the three I came to know. I guess because he was less of a threat than many others. I will always have a fondness for him, even if he is a Solar.

But, this was not be the last time I became pregnant with Desus, and it was not the last time that the pregnancy did not come to term. I think, overall, he was more interested in the power that forcing me to be pregnant gave him than having offspring. We had many, many pregnancies after that first one, and he made sure that no one knew about them after the first. I never stopped myself from becoming pregnant; I don’t think I would have been able to keep the means of contraception from his notice and his wrath. I think what finally made him stop was the fact that it stopped affecting me; it had just become another horrid aspect of our life together. It certainly wasn’t our children, for we had none.

 **The Usurpation**  
This is one of those points in history that every Lunar knows. This is the moment when the Golden Kings are thrown low from their mighty thrones to leave Creation in disrepair and ruin. When the star came down and dragged the golden woman away from the wolf to be put into a cage and locked away. I was there; the stars came down with the fire and thunder and stormy seas, when the world as I knew it changed. I will tell you as I remember it.

We were feasting, celebrating the dawn of a new year. This year was different than other years, for most of the Solars were able to make it to the feast, a record attendance. And so there we were, the Sun King Seneschals and other Silver Pact members that decided to join their mates in the feasting. There were many Lunars that were not in attendance, especially the Swords of Luna who were busy protecting creation, but this mattered less. The Solars needed to be there, the Lunars did not.

This is where we found ourselves, surrounded in opulence and splendor; eating and drinking and laughing their celebration. No one expected what would happen next. Not with loyal Dragon-Blooded guards around, and not with our fellow Exalted, the Sidereals there. It all happened so very fast.

There was no talking. There wasn’t someone giving a large speech, telling the Solars of what crimes brought on the coup. There was no indication that anything was coming at all. That is, until the doors burst open and Dragon-Blooded warriors came pouring into the hall. Not until the Sidereals changed from laughing at our jokes with glasses of Celestial wine in their hands to slitting our throats with claws of starmetal. Not until the bloodshed and the shouts and the death came.

The Solars and their loyal mates fought valiantly. Yes, there were many Lunars and some Solars that attempted and managed to escape, I being one of them. But, for what I saw, they fought with all that they had. It was truly the numbers that were inescapable. 

I fought for a time, because there was nothing else that I could do. I needed to fight because Desus was there, and I was compelled to do it. And he fought like the Primordial War survivor he was. If anyone could push back the advances of this treachery, it would be Desus and his Circle. However, there was the hint of weakness, a momentary mistake. Out of the darkness came a spear that he wasn’t prepared for. I had originally thought it was aimed at his heart, but instead it hit just above that vital organ, piercing his body and the Gem of Immortality that rested there.

In that moment, I knew I was free. My mind was free of many of the spells and controls he placed on me. I could think clearly and for myself. It could have been from many things: from his heart being pierced, from the fact that he was dying, or simply be the fact that he needed to focus his energies elsewhere and not squander his motes on controlling me any longer. But when I saw that spear penetrate him, blood flowing from his wounds, I turned into a small, white owl and I fled, leaving my abusive, destructive, insane, marvelous, beloved husband behind. I didn’t look back, but I knew the moment he was truly dead.

 **The Aftermath**  
The moment Desus was dead was the moment I lost my mind. The memories I have of these times shortly after the fall of the Solars are jumbled at best, and fabricated at the worst. I remember trying to take my true human shape, and as I did I felt the control I had on my mind snap away, as though my mind couldn’t work without the spells that Desus has forced upon me for so many years. And with that came the sudden loss of fullness and completeness, like the rhythms of my mind couldn't flow around the holes that had suddenly appeared to derail my thoughts.

Somehow I changed back into my spirit form, and somehow as a stryx, my mind was more stable. Not completely stable, but I had more control. I could think the way the stryx thought. I could understand the concept of danger and food and the need for shelter. And so I let that Spirit Shape guide me away from Creation and into the Wyld, where I was lost for a time. In the beast’s body, I could feel the pull of the Wyld like I had never experienced before. Exposed as I was to that chaos, I lost my Caste like the rest of my kin.

There were times when I could not be in my stryx form any longer, for something that was beyond me. At times it was a puzzle that no simple owl could solve, like how to cross a waypoint where the air was not thick enough to hold a bird aloft. Others times it was from seeing parts of my old life; when I first saw Mountain’s Fury, I fell out of the sky to awkwardly tumble at his feet. When I turned back into my human form, I could not help but rage and weep. I'm ashamed to say I attacked my old packmate when he tried to console my weeping. I could do nothing useful in this true shape of mine, where my mind was so lost to myself. But perhaps this had more to do with the tattooing than anything else. It was Swift on Wings that hunted me down, using my weakness of control over my own form to force me into the then-new tattoos of our people.

She found me, this old Pack member whom I had not spoken to for hundreds of years. Swift on Wings, with other unknown Lunars held me down after ambushing me as I wept and raged against them. I still remember her face clearly, with blue spirals on her cheeks and true concern in her eyes. Nowadays there are trials and deliberation that needed to be done. But I had already proven myself to be a warrior and assassin of the Waning Moon Caste. I had nothing to prove, and that ultimately made it easier for me. I think the only thing they’d hoped for was to find me free of Chimerism. I later learned the fates of my peers who were not found fast enough.

I did not stay to thank Swift on Wings, nor those who helped her tattoo me. As soon as the tattooing was done, I transformed into a stryx and flew away. I was still lost in my mind, but I could feel myself regaining some of that which I’d lost. The Wyld didn’t pull any longer, and I found refuge in Creation once again.

Many believe that during those fifteen hundred years between the Usurpation and now, I spent my time wandering and lost to the beast inside. Almost as bad as a Chimera, they would whisper. I will say, having met a few during those times, I was nothing like a Chimera. And I was not always lost to myself. I remember the Balorian crusade, as I spent much of my lucid time fighting the Fae as they poured into Creation. I remember the beginning of the Shogunate, for I too have fought my fair share of Dragon-Blooded. I was not unknown to the gods and spirits. I was not even unknown to all of the Lunars, having saved more than a few from Wyld hunts. The longer I was away from the control of Desus, the more my mind was coming back to me.

Just as I remember the day that Desus died, I known the day that his spirit returned to Creation. It was the same day that I had my mind back to myself. And it was in that moment, that I knew I needed to find him again. Because I knew that he needed to die again. Die a thousand times, and maybe even then it would still not be enough to atone.

 **Finding Swan**  
It did not take as long as I thought it would to find him again. I was leary and cautious of him, afraid that he was like Desus; all seeing and all knowing, foolish though this caution may have been to think of the bright young Solar he was. I followed him and watched him as many different creatures with many different faces. Where Desus would know me almost immediately, this man didn’t even seem to know he was being watched. He simply went about his business, unaware of the danger he was in. Because while I had been prepared for someone with power, I found a green boy. A green boy that could easily be killed, but that time was not then. If it had been Desus, with the same proclivities towards torment and manipulation, I would not have spared any time trying to kill him. He would have died, or I would have died trying rather than become controlled again. But this person, this Swan, was his own soul as I learned from my observations. He was not Desus. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t become him.

I needed to plan for his demise, and I knew of only one who still held onto their feelings as deeply as I did, who had a want for revenge as fiercely as I did. And so I went to see Oliphem. At first he tried to kill me, but that didn’t surprise me. I had, after all, been the “beloved” mate of his greatest enemy. But I told him of my own times with Desus, and that I had found his soul, and that I was going to lead him to Oliphem to die.

And so I needed to lead him, and therefore he needed to know me. Or at least this is what I thought in my head. I found him again, and watched him again. He was so different from the tormentor that I knew. He was not like Desus to use kindness as a lure to his traps. He was open and honest. He seemed connected to the land and the creatures around him in a way the Desus had never demonstrated. I had watched him as he traveled, and I saw the way that he cared for and helped the people of Creation, the way he truly cared for his mount. And so I waited, and listened, and contemplated what I would do. This time, he became aware of my presence and spoke to me. He must have seen me in my owl from, watching him from beyond the light of the campfire. He sat there, at the edge of light and spoke with me, as though he and the owl he saw had been good friends. I didn’t know how to react, so I stayed silent. We stayed like this for hours before I felt it was time to show who I was.

Steeling myself, I flew down to reveal who I was. It was rewarding to see him jump the way he did. He was not expecting me. Perhaps he simply speaks warm words to owls on occasion? And so he sat speechless as he looked at me. I told him who I was, and that we had been married almost thirty centuries ago. His face remained calm, but I could see in his eyes the way of recognition. It must have been something that Lytek had deemed necessary to give him about me. Because I was watching and studying this young man, I could see the miniscule softening of his features. He asked his questions, none of which I could bring myself to answer. Instead of knowledge, I gave him threats. I told him that his life would be forfeit if he traveled the wrong road and made the same mistakes. Before he could ask any more of his questions, I flew off. I knew I would not be leading him to Oliphem that night, nor any in the near future.

But I watch him. I am the judge of his actions and his sanity. His life is mine to take.


	7. Tamuz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tamuz, in awe of the Thousand Streams River, starts his own branch.

**Ingosh**  
My dear friend. My only true love. I miss you. I'd give much to show you the world of today, how far we've come, how true your prophecy has been. We would discuss how to fortify the streams against the happenings of the day. You'd calm me against my half-thought impulses. And we'd be together.

**The River’s Head**  
Some laws, some ways of living, have been established by the wise men who came before us for our safety and well-being. Some have been established out of superstition and fear, of ignorance and mistakes, and are essentially useless, though still as adhered to and revered as that first set. And some have been established for the aggrandizement of the ruling classes, so that they may better exploit those below them. A safe life means following them all - for often they are hard to distinguish. Disobeying any law or custom is likely to singe your fur. Even disobedience of ones that are against your interests will earn the attention of the powerful.

Safety is for children. Luna dares us to question. It is our duty to be skeptical. It is our duty to disobey.

This, I learned from the beautiful mind of my mentor, Ingosh Silverclaws. There have been times where, following its own advice, I’ve questioned the wisdom of this duty’s implications. When a young Lunar is taken by the Wyld Hunt for sticking her nose in Creation’s affairs, or when a Sidereal sends a Fate down from Yu-Shan to sweep the legs from this experiment or that - I have questioned whether it is worth the effort. But each time I consider my alternatives and see none better. We must guide humanity. If we do not, they will fail. And Creation is a better place for having them, despite their flaws. Were we not once mortal? Did Luna not fall in love with us as we were before her gifts?

But guide them on which track? That, Ingosh and I debated long and publically. I, in my rash manner of youth, would propose a course for humanity’s new culture. He, in his calm way, would point out where my supposed utopia would fall short. Until, one day, he thought I was ready to hear what he was really thinking.

His thoughts went that all societies are flawed, that none of them are ready for the infinite challenges that may come their way. So we must imbue in mortal society the kaleidoscope of variety shown by our patron and her mistress, Gaia. If Creation is a patchwork of isolated cultures, each with different strengths, each with different weaknesses, then at least one will have the attributes to rise above any given challenge. Then, before the next doom comes to threaten humanity again, we diversify from that population bottleneck in the hopes that one of them will be suited for survival. Ingosh proposed that the very connectedness and monoculture of the Realm’s Deliberative, coordinated by I AM’s whispers across the world, was to blame for its catastrophic failure as much as the Solars themselves.

I, as usual, was humbled by the clarity of his thought, the eloquence of his delivery, and the subtleness of his timing. Had I not gone through the exercise of solving the problem myself, I might have rejected the idea as fatalistic. Had we not debated publically, the other Lunars would not have had enough exposure to accept the idea, either. The Thousand Streams River was born in the mind of Ingosh Silverclaws, and I honor his memory by seeing it spread across Creation.

**Establishing the Delzahn**  
It took some time past reaching this consensus, but I eventually found just where to start. At the time, the Shogunate was shattered and fading even from Dragon-Blooded memory. The Realm was still recovering from the Great Contagion, and the Threshold was in disarray. Warlords ruled what they could by force instead of diplomacy, often being overthrown before they could have their heirs succeed them. One such warlord, Saiz Ellendar, ruled Chairoscuro. It was too fat a prize for him. He harassed the merchants who came to trade there, guided by the eyes shining out into the sea and the claws that protected the harbor, squandering its potential. Some group was going to take it, and I resolved that the next conquerors would be my fork of the river.

To the South along the savannah rode a nomadic people called the Delzahn. They were quick to fight over matters of honor, even quicker to close a deal in their favor, and they were master horsemen. Cavalry has such possibilities, truly a force multiplier in this fallen age. But they squandered that strength against each other, split in three tribes, the Machoo, the Kikiwe, and the Ouweq, each with a Khan eager but not able to assert his will over his cousins.

It was a trifle to find a warrior of good breeding among them, slay him and eat his heart’s blood, and take his place among them as this ‘Tamas’. His name was close enough to mine that I could answer to it at a normal reflex. With my Exalted strength, I quickly rose to the warleader of the Machoo, the right hand of the Khan. A short while later he and his family were disgraced, and I was unsurprisingly chosen to succeed him.

Through a series of short wars and one-sided treaty pacts, the Machoo under my leadership achieved what their ancestors had bled for but never managed: defeating both other tribes at once even allied with each other against the Machoo. Since my objective was unification, not subjugation, I argued for magnanimity in victory. I pardoned the Kikiwe and the Ouweq of their war crimes and absolved them of their customary restitution payments, even freeing the enslaved men. I handed the reigns of the Machoo to another, and arranged for a properly upstanding group of Delzahn from all three tribes demand I be declared the Kha-Khan, the ruler of rulers. With some private arm-twisting of the three Khans, they publically agreed. Then, before that news had truly sunk in, I led the united Delzahn with the mission to conquer the fattest target of the South, Chairoscuro.

**The Conquest of Chiaroscuro**  
The Delzahn were ready for their first test. I paved the way with the appropriate bribes to the appropriate spirits, Grandmother Bright very much included. I planned their strategies and I shouted orders in battle. But they were the ones that did the fighting. They were the ones that captured the outer towns, leaving no means of escape for Saiz and his men but the sea. They rode into the city, screaming their ululating warcries, chopping and lancing their enemies. That way, they felt it was truly theirs. Well, at least some of theirs.

Nomadic people are not suited to city living. They see cities as banks of wealth to break into, to steal from, then to simply ride away to enjoy the spoils. There isn’t enough grass behind any city wall to graze their horses and camels and goats. But, through a combination of the buildings of Chairoscuro being strong enough to weather anything mortal nomads could muster and a great many horses having died in the conquest I managed to keep the city standing and a few of the Delzahn to linger. I spoke with the most progressive, forward looking Delzahn. I convinced them that now was an excellent time to trade their horses to their conservative kin, who were teeming with loot and needing a horse to preserve their dignity during the ride South to their homeland. Many saw the profit in such an offer, and many horses traded hands at a steep premium. Those were the kinds of minds I needed to start Chairoscuro’s new rule.

Of course, it was not always so easy. War, properly prepared, is usually the fun part. Ruling requires seeing enemies who do not show their faces, sniffing out sincerity among complements at court, and treating with neighbors who could be your enemy tomorrow. The Delzahn lacked that sophistication in the beginning. I guided them as the Kha-Khan for a short while, inviting both the Guild in as trading partners and the Realm as a nominal overlord. Many of the Delzahn took the Guild’s presence as an affront, at least until they realized the tax revenue they could reap from the guildsmen. It took all the political capital I had accrued as Kha-Khan Tamas to submit to the Realm without a fight, no matter how superior they were militarily. Having done all I could in that guise, I sent an invitation to the Wyld Hunt. They rose to the bait. I faked my death at their hands, and the Dragon-Blooded who ‘slew’ me gained great honor. Any doubts my presumed killers might have had on the finality of the kill were buried below accolades to their Anathema hunting prowess. Having assured themselves that the Delzahn of Chairoscuro were not under the influence of an Anathema, they sat back to enjoy the tribute they did not earn. And the Delzahn ruled the city as well as the surrounding country, skimming the vast trade flowing into Crab Harbor, riding wherever the grazing was sweet, keeping the virtue of warriors, resisting the decadence of plenty.

I had hoped that they would carry on with minimal interference from me for the rest of my days. But, plans never survive prolonged encounter with the enemy.


End file.
